Reading of The Last Sunday in June, Featuring Real-Life Couple Michael Urie and Ryan Spahn, Presented June 2

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02 Jun 2014

Michael Urie

Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

About Face Theatre, a company devoted to advancing the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, kicks off its Pride Performance Series June 2 with a reading of Buyer and Cellar playwright Jonathan Tolins' TheLast Sunday in June.

"TheLast Sunday In June is a fascinating look back at how much has changed in the LGBTQ landscape over the past ten years," press notes state. "It's the last Sunday in June 2003, the day of the annual Gay Pride Parade through New York's Greenwich Village. Tom and Michael, his partner of seven years, intend to spend the day planning their impending move from the Big Apple to the upstate town of Nyack, but their plans are rerouted as one friend after another drops by to view the parade from the window of their Christopher Street apartment. An afternoon originally designated for things domestic instead turns into a series of conversations about relationships, self-acceptance and the very meaning of what it is to be gay, eventually calling into question Tom and Michael's relationship itself."

The line-up of readings, performances and special events celebrating the LGBTQIA experience will continue throughout June.

"Lesbians & Literature," a panel discussion and performance exploring gay women in literature, will be presented June 10 at 7 PM. Hosted by AFT artistic associate Paul Oakley Stovall as part of the PivotArts Festival, the discussion will be held at Uncommon Ground, featuring playwright Marilyn Campbell, AFT artistic associate Elizabeth Ledo, playwright and actress Pat Kane and others.

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Bixby Elliot's Abraham Lincoln was a F*gg*t will be presented June 13-14 at the Chicago Dramatists. Here's how the production is billed: "Was our country's most beloved president gay? That's what 17-year-old Cal thinks and he's going to prove it to the world! Structured around an oral report that Cal presents at Ford's Theatre where Lincoln met his untimely end, Abraham Lincoln was a F*gg*t weaves together Cal's story and his quest to prove the secret (based in fact) sexual history of Gaybraham Lincoln. Along the way there is damning evidence, time travel, a road trip to the nation's capital, budding high-school romance, a crazy Mary Todd and sex in a stove-pipe hat." AFT artistic director Andrew Volkoff will direct.

The celebration will conclude with Methtacular!, Steven Strafford's autobiographical play about the years he was a meth addict. Directed by Adam Fitzgerald, the play will be performed June 17 at American Theater Company. "Methtacular! is Steven Strafford's hilarious and harrowing account of his three year run as a crystal meth addict in Chicago," press notes state. "As Steven weaves together stories, songs and 'Facts of Life' references, audiences will laugh their way down into the depths of a drug addled, sex crazed life."